Father Pitt

Tag: Washington Avenue (Carnegie)

  • Church of the Atonement, Carnegie

    Church of the Atonement
    Utility cables were removed from this picture, because Father Pitt could not remove them from the street.

    With almost complete confidence, old Pa Pitt attributes this Episcopal church to Ingham & Boyd. It speaks the same dialect of Gothic as some of their other churches, and they are known to have designed the parish house that was built just before the church. However, Father Pitt has not yet found the documentary evidence that would remove the “almost” from his statement.

    Cornerstone of the Church of the Atonement

    The cornerstone was laid on October 5, 1930. At the same time, one stone taken from the foundation of Old St. Luke’s in nearby Woodville was also laid in the foundation of this church, to tie it to the pre-Revolutionary tradition of Episcopalianism in Allegheny County.1

    Door of the Church of the Atonement
    Foliage ornament
    Lantern
    Cross on the roof
    Church of the Atonement
    Parish house
    Olympus E-20N.

    This parish house is known from several listings to have been the work of Ingham & Boyd,2 and it was built just a little before the church itself. The architects looked to vernacular Western Pennsylvania farmhouses for their inspiration. We do not know what inspired the designer of the modern vestibule.

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  • Dual Presbyterians in Carnegie

    First Presbyterian Church, Carnegie

    This church, formerly First Presbyterian of Carnegie, now belongs to the Attawheed Islamic Center, which keeps the building up beautifully and lavishes a lot of attention on the landscaping. We can see from an old postcard from the Presbyterian Historical Society collection (undated, but probably about 1900) that this side of the building has hardly changed at all—except for the improvement in the landscaping. Even the stained glass is intact, since it is not representational and therefore causes no offense to Islamic principles.

    Old postcard of First Presbyterian Church
    Rear of the church

    At least two layers of educational buildings are behind the church.

    Diagonally across Washington Avenue is another Presbyterian church…

    First United Presbyterian Church

    …but this one was First United Presbyterian. The United Presbyterians were a Pittsburgh-based denomination that finally merged with those other Presbyterians in 1958. The building now is used as a banquet hall.

    First United Presbyterian Church
    Towers
    First United Presbyterian Church
    Rear of the church
    Sony Alpha 3000; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.
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  • Clark High School, Scott Township

    Clark High School

    Just outside Carnegie on Washington Avenue, this school opened in the fall of 1935. It was designed in a bracingly modern style by Mount Lebanon architect J. Lawrence Hopp, who designed a number of other schools in nearby suburbs. It has been an office building for quite a while now, but the alterations to the exterior have not been severe, as we can see from a 1950 photograph of students trying their hands at rescue techniques.

    Rescue drills at Clark High School, Scott Township
    Photo by Post-Gazette photographer Paul Slantis, from Historic Pittsburgh (go there to see it in full resolution).

    A certain number of students were probably lost every time these drills were performed, but that is the price we pay for preparedness.

    Entrance

    Some history of the building and all the yearbooks are at the Chartiers Valley Historical Society page on Clark High School.

    1100 Washington Avenue
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.
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  • Thompson Building, Carnegie

    Thompson Building, Carnegie

    Since we were talking about acute angles, here is a “flatiron” building at the acute angle of the intersection of Main Street and Washington Avenue in Carnegie. Pittsburgh and its surroundings are full of these triangular buildings, because Pittsburgh topography makes it very difficult to lay streets out in a simple grid.

    Thompson Building
    Sony Alpha 3000.
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